公开(公告)号：US06246822B1

公开(公告)日：2001-06-12

申请号：US09313862

申请日：1999-05-18

申请人： Kyung Joon Kim ,  Robert Lynn Caswell ,  Cecil Leon Hayes

发明人： Kyung Joon Kim ,  Robert Lynn Caswell ,  Cecil Leon Hayes

IPC分类号： G02B606

CPC分类号： G02B6/4249 ,  G02B6/06 ,  G02B6/2861

摘要： A fiber-coupled receiver and associated method are provided for detecting two-dimensional and three-dimensional images in a cost-effective manner. The fiber-coupled receiver includes a plurality of optical fibers extending between respective first and second ends. At least some of the optical fibers impose different optical delays such that signals that are received in parallel by the first ends of the optical fibers are emitted at different times from the second ends of the optical fibers. For example, at least some of the optical fibers can have different lengths to thereby impose different optical delays. The fiber-coupled receiver also includes at least one detector for receiving the signals emitted at different times from the second ends of the optical fibers such that the signals that are received in parallel by the first ends of the optical fibers are received in series by the detector. By presenting the signals in series to the detector, the fiber-coupled receiver need not include a detector having separate array elements for each optical fiber. Instead, the fiber-coupled receiver of the present invention has a significantly fewer number of detectors than the number of optical fibers since each detector can receive signals in series from a number of optical fibers.

摘要翻译： 提供了一种光纤耦合接收机和相关方法，用于以成本有效的方式检测二维和三维图像。 光纤耦合接收器包括在相应的第一和第二端之间延伸的多个光纤。 至少一些光纤施加不同的光学延迟，使得由光纤的第一端并联接收的信号在与光纤的第二端不同的时间发射。 例如，至少一些光纤可以具有不同的长度，从而施加不同的光学延迟。 光纤耦合接收机还包括至少一个检测器，用于接收在光纤的第二端的不同时间发射的信号，使得由光纤的第一端并行接收的信号由 探测器。 通过将信号串联提供给检测器，光纤耦合接收器不需要包括用于每个光纤的具有单独阵列元件的检测器。 相反，本发明的光纤耦合接收机具有比光纤数量少得多的检测器数量，因为每个检测器可以接收多个光纤串联的信号。